Nokia pulls the plug on the Ozo VR camera, will lay off up to 310 employees

Nokia Technologies has announced that it will be reducing its investments in VR due to "slower-than-expected development of the VR market," and this means putting an end to its Ozo VR camera. While Nokia will fulfill its commitments to customers who have already purchased the camera, the company explains that it will not develop future versions of Ozo.

Nokia revealed the change of plans in a statement yesterday, in which the company also detailed a business restructuring plan that includes laying off up to 310 employees—a significant percentage of Nokia Technologies' 1,090 worker base. These layoffs will primarily happen in the US, UK and Finland, and are part of a shift towards "digital health and brand and technology licensing."

Presently, the Ozo+ camera is still listed as available in Nokia's online store for $25,000 USD.

Planned changes expected to impact Nokia Technologies employees mainly in Finland, the US and the UK

Nokia's successful patent licensing business is not in scope of planned changes

October 10, 2017

Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced plans to sharpen the focus of Nokia Technologies on digital health, and accelerate growth in that market, while optimizing investments in virtual reality (VR). Nokia Technologies will also focus on growing brand and technology licensing while leaving its successful patent licensing business untouched.

The shift deepens Nokia's commitment to fully leverage its digital health portfolio acquired through the purchase of Withings in 2016. Through a more focused, more agile digital health business, Nokia aims to have larger impact with consumers and the medical community.

In digital media, the slower-than-expected development of the VR market means that Nokia Technologies plans to reduce investments and focus more on technology licensing opportunities. The unit aims to halt development of further versions of the OZO VR camera and hardware, while maintaining commitments to existing customers.

The potential reductions are expected to affect up to 310 of the roughly 1090 employees in Nokia Technologies, mainly in Finland, the US and the UK. To start the process, Nokia today has invited employee representatives of Nokia Technologies in Finland to cooperation negotiations.

"Nokia Technologies is at a point where, with the right focus and investments, we can meaningfully grow our footprint in the digital health market, and we must seize that opportunity," said Gregory Lee, president of Nokia Technologies. "While necessary, the changes will also affect our employees, and as a responsible company we are committed to providing the needed support to those affected."

Comments

Traditional digital photos are still the most popular thing, even video can't catch up, as the technology grows and the world speeds up, people only have so much time to glance at a photo and throw a like occasionally. Things like VR and video take more time to get viewed than an average modern man wants to spare.

"<I>slower-than-expected development of the VR market</I>" Yep. Just like the "3D TV revolution" that was pushed a few years ago: if it's a crap experience people don't want it. Wearing 3D shutter glasses in your own living room was silly enough, but wearing a nauseating wired VR headset and standing/sitting rooted to the spot is far from reality. VR is useful for specialised commercial/military applications, such as learning to fix a $20m aircraft or a wind turbine when you don't have a real one to play with. For the rest of us, Augmented Reality is a far more useful concept.

IMHO 360 capture devices are not the future of VR/360 content. They're too expensive, low image quality and limited by the computational power of a portable device.

VR will get interesting when tech like Microsoft Hyperlapse or Google Tango are a bit more mature. This tech allows us to use any '2D' camera (DSLR, smartphone) to snap multiple images and point map them in to a 3D environment. This not only results in a 360 view that has the potential for better IQ than a dedicated device, but it also provides more degrees of freedom in the observers movement.

When you think of history of art, those are the steps;-painting on a cave wall-carving relief on stone-making the statue (3D) -drawing realistic pictures -drawing surrealic pictures -photography & filmograpy

And now VR. you can be part of someones fantasy or vision. Or witness to something at highest realistic level.

The art after all, is touching our 5 senses. For now vr can touch our sight and sound. Imagine a vr which makes you taste smell and feel the textures!

The other issue is technology and cost. A 4k image is really clear, but it's just one small rectangle. How many of those rectangles does it take to fill an entire sphere? What is the true mathematical equivalence of 4k multiplied over the entire sphere's area required to reproduce it accurately?

I really don't like how companies will say their 360 cameras are 4K because 4K is incredibly weak over that big of a field. It would be like someone telling me I was awarded one million dollars (to share equally with 100,000 people). That's ten bucks each.

@MikeFairbanks this is why VR/360 photography isnt taking off yet. You pay $thousands for a capture device that ends up giving you the equivalent of 720p in your current field of view.

Enthusiasts (like most of the folk here, I assume) tend to drag technology in to the main stream, and certainly make it profitable in the early days. But right now, enthusiasts are not going to spend $25k on a device that generates results with anything but great IQ.

I never understood the point of VR photography, it is NOT the same as a computer generated or 3D modelled world. You're basically stuck in one space with a VR photo or video, else if the camera moves, everything will move in a fish eye like effect.

When the Nikon Keymotion? 360 degree camera was launched at 100 times less the price of this No Kia, I didn't understand the point. Same with the 360 degree camera module for the new Essential phone.

All pointless! VR has to be computer generated so you can actually move through it as if you were really there. This cannot be done with a camera due to the laws of physics!

There is something to be said of the feeling of immersion you get from looking around freely in a VR video/photo, but given the current technological constraints, I've yet to see something that makes me go "wow". The screen door effect and low resolution don't help. I own a HTC Vive and use it for gaming 99% of the time.

Finland, perhaps, where they have even been trialling a universal income. Even so, "excellent" is probably far too strong a word to use.

Unemployment benefits in the UK are only "excellent" if you are a government minister trying to justify budget cuts so that your colleagues can waste the savings on their pet projects, all while you pull in "expenses" and line up various well-paid side-gigs and directorships for yourself.

VR, like the 3D TV gimmick years ago are gonna die with no one remembering it. Don't forget things like the Nintendo Virtual Boy or any other VR products on the 90s', they all flopped and until today, we still don't have the sufficient technology yet to fully realized the absolute interpretation of a VR.

Until holographic object or scene can be projected around the user's environment in high fidelity, no FOV limits and without the use of any glasses or headgear projection, I say VR/AR/MR is still at its infancy.

VR takes a lot of company resources and of course money, only recently Apple said VR was not ready yet. The future will to a large extent have VR and/or AR, but Nokia need to concentrate on the mass market products.

Companies keep making these utterly ridiculous products, no surprise nobody buys them - and so it's no surprise the product flops...I'm no business expert, but even I can see these silly 360° ball thingy's are a waste of development time & resources!!

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